


Shelter

by Fallynleaf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Castiel, Castiel and Animals, Crazy Castiel, Demisexual Sam, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Sam and Dogs, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6988315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf/pseuds/Fallynleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is sucked into Purgatory after killing Dick Roman, but Cas is not. Cas sticks with Sam, and the two of them are traveling in the Impala together when Sam hits and injures a dog just outside of Kermit, Texas. Cas heals the dog, but they still have the problem of finding a home for the dog, and the small town of Kermit doesn't have a proper animal shelter. So Sam and Cas start one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Dragonfredd for the beta, and [fear-no-moose](http://fear-no-moose.tumblr.com/) for the lovely art! The art post for the fic is [here](http://fear-no-moose.tumblr.com/post/145016566644/my-contribution-to-fallynleaf-amazing-fic-for-the).
> 
> And thanks to the Asexual Supernatural Mini Bang folks for giving me an excuse to write this!

After Dean disappeared and it was just Sam and Cas, the only thing Sam knew how to do was get into the car and drive. He didn't know where he was going. Didn't particularly care. Nothing else mattered as long as there was a road and the familiar sound of the engine and all that was left in his entire world contained within the small space of the car.

Sam brought Cas along because he couldn't let him go. He didn't think Cas wanted to leave, anyways, though sometimes it was hard to tell with Cas.

They didn't talk about Dean. The thought of Dean was like a dark void cut out of Sam's thoughts. He couldn't think about Dean, because then he would realize that he didn't know how he could even start to find out what had happened to him. All of Sam's old contacts had either died or disappeared. He had no resources, no one he could look to for guidance.

And so Sam drove, and Cas sat in the seat next to him, and neither one of them knew where to go, or what to do next.

Nothing to do besides try and lose themselves on little-used highways and back roads.

Then Sam hit the dog.

In all his years on the road and in all of the hours of his life he'd spent driving, he'd never hit a dog before. His focus had always been better than that.

When he opened the door and stepped out of the car, his hands were shaking, and suddenly, everything just felt overwhelming. Sam stared down at the dog lying in the road, bloodied but still breathing. He dropped to his knees and reached out.

"Cas," Sam said, his voice unsteady. "Save this dog. Please."

Cas extended his hand and rested it on the dog's fur. Then the dog got to his feet and started to wag his tail excitedly.

Sam let out a shaky breath of relief. "Where's your master, dog?" he asked.

The dog licked his hand. Sam started to aimlessly pet him, looking around for anyone that might be missing their dog. Besides the Impala, the road was empty. There were no houses by the road, or even any long, winding driveways. Just weeds and dirt and scraggly shrubs.

"I guess we're going to take a bit of a detour, Cas," Sam said.

Cas said nothing. He was crouching beside the dog, staring intently into a clump of weeds at the side of the road. Sam had no idea what had caught his attention. Knowing Cas, he supposed it might be a bug.

The dog licked Cas's face, and Cas didn't so much as blink.

"Cas?" Sam asked. "Hey, we're leaving."

He touched Cas's shoulder, and that seemed to finally get his attention, because Cas turned and looked up at him.

Dean had frequently gotten frustrated dealing with Cas after his "recovery" from taking on Sam's crazy. Sam hadn't. Because he understood how the hallucinations could break someone like that. He understood, and felt equal parts grateful and guilty that Cas was the one who had broken that way instead of him.

Sam didn't even think about Dean's "no dogs in the car" rule until the dog was already sitting in the backseat. And then Sam just kind of froze and had to take a couple steady breaths, trying not to think about the fact that Dean wasn't here to enforce that rule.

So instead, he thought about the dog, and wondered if the dog's owners were looking for him. It was good to have something else to focus on.

 

* * *

 

They drove into town, and Sam asked for directions to the local animal shelter.

"There isn't one," the woman behind the gas station counter said. "We've just got animal control at the police department." She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. Sam guessed that meant that the police department was located down the street from the gas station.

"Okay. Uh, thanks," Sam said. He grabbed the bag of candy off of the counter, and almost forgot the Life Savers that Cas had picked out and insisted on buying.

The police department wasn't difficult to find. Kermit, Texas, as it turns out, did not have a whole lot going on.

Sam didn't have anything he could really use as a leash for the dog, but the dog didn't seem inclined to stray from his side, so he hoped it wouldn't be a problem. Cas almost seemed more lost than the dog, trailing behind Sam with a kind of absent look about him.

It was immediately apparent that animal control had a very limited facility. Sam disliked the look of the place as soon as he opened the door. The man at the front desk looked both tired and overworked, and Sam didn't really blame him. He figured that in towns like this, the residents didn't really have the tax dollars to spend on something as invisible as animal control.

Lost pet flyers papered the wall beside the front desk. Sam stopped to peruse them, comparing the grainy, faded images to the dog that sat patiently at his feet.

"Can I help you?" the man asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "I found this dog at the side of a road, and I'm trying to get him back to his owners."

The man peered down at the dog. "I don't recognize him," he said. "If somebody's missing him, I don't think anyone's reported it yet."

"Could you take him?" Sam asked. He figured animal control would be the first place that most people would look if their dog went missing.

"We do take in unwanted pets here, yes," the man said. "But our adoption rate isn't that good. We get more pets coming in than we have space for."

Same knew what that meant. It left a bad taste in his mouth.

He heard something clatter. A bunch of assorted brightly colored Life Saver candies, rolling onto the front desk. Cas held the empty packaging in his hand, his eyes focused on the man.

"Um, Cas?" Sam said.

"Release them," Cas said. "The facilities here are inadequate. The animals say they would be rather live outside than in these cages." He pushed the pile of Life Savers towards the man as if they were some sort of acceptable payment for this request.

"I'm really sorry about this," Sam apologized to the man. He grabbed Cas's arm and tried to gently encourage him to back down. Cas didn't budge. "We're leaving, Cas," Sam said. He pulled a little harder.

The man was squinting up at Cas like he was trying to figure out exactly what kind of drugs he was on.

Somehow, Sam managed to drag Cas out of the room and back to the car. The dog just obediently tagged along after them.

Sam sighed. He turned the key in the ignition, and as the engine growled to life, he looked at Cas, and then at the dog.

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, Sam pulled into the library parking lot. He'd acquired an actual leash for the dog, and he used it to tie the dog to a tree in the park right beside the library. "I'll be back in a half hour or so," he told the dog. "As long as you stay away from the roads, you should be fine."

"Do you want to stay outside and watch the dog, Cas?" Sam asked.

Cas stood beside the tree, his eyes fixed on the dog.

"You don't have to watch him that carefully," Sam said, smiling. "Just make sure he doesn't get loose, and if you think he needs water or anything, come and get me."

Then Sam went into the library, and sat down at one of the computers. He'd taken a picture of the dog with his phone, and he pulled up the image and pasted it into a word document. " _IS THIS YOUR DOG?_ " he typed above the image in block letters.

It wasn't a very pretty flyer, but he hoped it would do its job.

He started to type his contact information, then hesitated. Not very many people had his number. Sam kind of wanted to keep it that way. Maybe if he got a motel room in town, he could stay there while he waited to sort out the thing with the dog, and put the motel's number on the flyer instead of his cell number.

 

* * *

 

It didn't take long for Sam to find a motel. Thankfully, the one he found didn't have a policy that prohibited pets, though Sam probably would've just snuck the dog into his room anyways.

He asked for a double by force of habit, and didn't realize his mistake until he opened the door to the room and saw the two beds.

A sudden wave of grief punched him in the gut. For a minute, he thought he was going to cry, his breath coming heavy and uneven.

Then Cas walked up with the dog's leash in hand, and Sam focused on the image of Cas outlined against the mid-afternoon sun, his clothing and hair oversaturated with sunlight.

Sam wasn't alone. He had to remember that.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Rubbed at his eyelids, feeling the strain of a bunch of sleepless nights all trying to catch up to him.

Then he walked back to the front desk and asked if he could put the motel's number on his lost dog flyers.

The motel manager, a fairly young guy named Everett, said, "No problem. Go right ahead. If I get a call about the dog, I'll give you a heads up."

Sam thanked him, then drove back to the library to print the flyers. He spent the rest of the day distributing them around town, placing them where they could be seen from the sidewalks and streets, asking local diner owners if he could stick them up inside of their restaurants.

After that, there was nothing left to do but wait.

Except Sam wasn't good at waiting. Especially not in a motel room. It made him feel like a kid again. Alone and angry, waiting and waiting for his father to come back.

So he decided to go running. Thought about taking the dog with him, but didn't really want to worry about the dog's ability to keep up.

The sun had gone down, and the night air was a little cooler. Sam tore through the heavy Texas air, losing himself in the sweat and misery of physical exertion.

He hoped the exercise would help him sleep, but knew from past experience that it probably wouldn't.

And, hours later into the night, Sam woke up from a nightmare, the blankets thrown off and twisted around his legs. He sat up in bed and tried to clear the images from his head.

It had been another Hell dream. Sam had been getting more of them since Dean had disappeared into Purgatory. Sam didn't know what Purgatory was like, so naturally, he imagined it was Hell. After Sam had pawned off his Hell trauma on Cas, he'd hoped that maybe the nightmares would stop, but of course he couldn't be that lucky.

The dreams did get easier, though. Less present and visceral. Instead of Sam being right back there in Hell with Lucifer, it was like watching a movie of himself being right back there in Hell with Lucifer. Still just as much of a nightmare, but at least this was a nightmare that Sam could wake up from.

He got out of bed and walked into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. When he stepped back into the room, Cas was looking at him with a concerned expression.

"It's just a nightmare, Cas," Sam sighed. "I just‒ I need to find a case or something. Figure out where to even start researching Purgatory." He went through his bag and retrieved his laptop. He opened it up and connected to the internet.

Cas hadn't been talking much since the final confrontation with Dick. He probably blamed himself for not being able to protect Dean, or for not foreseeing that something like that could happen.

But it was okay, because Sam hadn't been talking much, either. He'd interacted with more people in the past day than he had in all of the other days since Dean's disappearance combined.

"What about the dog?" Cas asked.

"I'll make sure he has a home first," Sam said. "But after that..." He stared at the internet browser opened to its homepage on his screen. He moved to type something into the search bar, but his mind was blank.

Sam just closed the laptop with a sigh and placed his head in his hands.

"Maybe you should just leave," he said. "You'd have better luck finding a way to save Dean on your own."

"No," Cas said simply. He held out his hand. Sam stared down at it, trying to figure out if this was going to be another pull-my-finger moment. But this time, Cas's hand was turned up, and there was something small and red cupped in his palm. A Life Saver.

Cas motioned for Sam to take it, so he did.

And somehow, Sam managed to fall back asleep after that. It was a light, fitful sleep, but at least he didn't have any dreams.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Sam still had heard nothing on the dog, and his credit card was about out of money.

He went to the motel reception to speak with Everett about needing to switch to a different card, and that's when he noticed the rattle in the air conditioner.

It got him a job.

Sam didn't have a lot of experience doing this kind of repair work. But he was good with his hands, and had worked with a wide assortment of tools in his line of work, and he knew how to look up what he needed to know to get things done.

The money was nice, but what Sam most appreciated about the work was that it gave him something to do besides simply waiting around all day.

Every morning, he woke up early, and took the dog on a brisk walk before the heat set in. He picked routes that took him through parks and areas with a lot of nature, both for the dog's sake and for Cas's. Being outside was good for Cas. He'd talk about insects, and about birds, and whatever other animals came to mind. Most of it was weird info dumps. Or just unintelligible leaps of logic that Sam never quite followed.

It always came back to God's plan. Though Cas never talked about humans that way. Just animals and trees and flowers.

Sometimes, Cas started to talk about the cats and dogs at animal control, but Sam usually changed the subject. He didn't want to encourage Cas to take some sort of half-baked vigilante action to free the animals. Sam had a hard enough time finding a home for _one_ animal, much less all of the unwanted pets in the entire town.

No one called about the dog.

Time passed, but Sam didn't really pay that much attention to it. He focused on getting through each day, one at a time. Trying to think beyond that was too much. And honestly, Sam kind of liked not thinking about stuff for once in his life. He just ran, and fixed things, and ate, and slept.

That was the routine. Until one day, Sam came back to the motel after lunch, and there was an older woman talking to Everett.

"Hey, Sam!" Everett called out to him with a brief wave.

"Oh, are you Sam?" the older woman said, turning to face him.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Nice to meet you, um..."

"Margaret. I'm Everett's aunt," the woman said, holding out her hand. She had a firm grasp when Sam shook her hand, her eyes strong and steady. "Everett says you've done some good work."

"Um, thanks," Sam said.

"I was just talking to that fellow who says he's with you. Cassidy, was it?" she said. "He told me about the dog. It really is a shame that we don't have anywhere besides the police to take lost animals. But you boys are doing the lord's work."

"It's really nothing," Sam said. He looked around, wondering where Cas had wandered off to.

"Well, I'd like to help," Margaret said.

"Really?" Sam asked.

"And I think you might be able to help me, too. I've got some property, you see. It's an old house; needs a bit of fixing up. But it's got a good yard for dogs to run around in."

This conversation was heading in a direction that Sam wasn't expecting. He worried that Cas might've said something that gave this woman the wrong idea.

"Are you sure—" he started.

"Oh, don't worry," Margaret said. "The house isn't that bad. Just needs a little work, is all. And from what Everett has told me about you, it shouldn't be a problem. If you're willing to put in the labor, you can stay there free of charge."

"You want me to turn your house into a dog rescue?" Sam asked, a little incredulous.

She nodded. "It's a much better use for an old, crumbling eyesore, wouldn't you say? No one wants to buy the property as it is anyways, so I'd like to see someone use it to do some good."

 

* * *

 

 

And that's how Sam ended up driving out to look at a house, Cas and dog in tow. He didn't know what he was doing, but Margaret seemed nice enough, and Sam couldn't think of a way to politely decline.

It did have a good yard. Or, the _potential_ for a good yard. There were a couple tall trees that looked like they'd provide some great shade, but the ground was patchy and overgrown. A falling down fence enclosed the whole area.

The house needed a new paint job. It needed a lot more than that, actually, but a simple paint job would do a lot to clean up the place.

It wasn't a very large house. Two bedroom, one bathroom. A decent sized kitchen with an awful pastel color scheme. An attic that Sam was honestly a little afraid to go into, and with his line of work, that was saying something.

"So, what do you say?" Margaret asked.

"Um, sure?" Sam said.

She handed over the keys. Sam's brain was already fast at work making a list of everything that would have to be done before the place would be livable. But he'd squatted in far worse houses, and he was used to living pretty far from the lap of luxury, so he felt cautiously optimistic about the whole thing.

 

* * *

 

Later, when it was just Sam and Cas, back at the motel room, Sam asked, "What are we doing, Cas?"

"Preparing for sleep," Cas answered. He lay on the bed that would've been Dean's bed, the covers still perfectly made.

"With the house, Cas," Sam clarified. "And the dog."

Cas was silent for a minute. His thoughts worked at a different speed than Sam's. "A wasp queen uses her mandibles to scrape bits of wood fiber from fences or logs," he said. "She uses saliva and water to break down the wood fibers in her tiny mouth, and then she flies to her chosen nest site with a mouthful soft paper pulp. She has to build a new one each spring. Only the queens can hibernate through winter. The rest of the wasps die, and a queen has to start a whole new nest every year. Isn't that sad?"

Sam waited, wondering if Cas had an actual point he was trying to make with all of this.

"The entire wasp nest is really just one wasp. She populates her home each year. Brings the past nest with her in the genetic makeup of her eggs. Because a home is the people, not the place," Cas said. "And these animals have no people."

"Cas..." Sam started. He didn't know how to decipher the whole wasp analogy—which seemed tangentially related at best to the point that Cas had tried to make—but there but there was one important thing that needed to be addressed. "What about Dean?"

Cas didn't answer. After a moment, Sam realized that Cas was faking being asleep.

"I guess we'll be having that conversation later," Sam said, sighing. He rolled onto his side, facing away from Cas.

But they didn't talk about it.

Not that night, nor the next night, nor the one after that.

 

* * *

 

Sam started work on the house. He liked the work, because he didn't really have to think about it. He put Cas to work, too. Cas was good at the kind of tasks that required inhuman precision. As long as Cas got decent instructions, Sam could assign him a task and leave him alone for awhile.

The dog liked to run between them, hanging around Sam for a couple minutes, then bounding off to see what Cas was up to. By lunchtime, the dog would be passed out under a tree, tired out from all of the excitement.

It took a week of work before Sam deemed the house "livable." He would've moved in even earlier than that, but he didn't want to alarm Margaret, who had been stopping by each day to see his progress.

A couple days after that, a washing machine showed up on Sam's front porch. Margaret said that someone had donated it.

Sam just stared at it, amazed. He'd never owned a washing machine before, not even when he lived with Jess. Laundromats had been it for him his entire life.

He installed it in the house, then filled it with a test load of clothes. He checked on it every couple minutes as it ran, watching his flannels swirl around and around, spellbound.

Cas helped him tie up a clothesline. Together, they pinned up all of Sam's shirts to dry.

Seeing the line of clothes swaying gently in the backyard, Sam felt oddly choked up. He didn't make a lot of progress on the house, that day.

 

* * *

 

Word of mouth travels fast in a small town, Sam discovered. People started showing up who wanted to help him out. Friends of Margaret at first, then friends-of-friends of Margaret, then friends-of-friends-of-friends of Margaret.

An older man had a bunch of old wood boards he wanted to get rid of, so Sam borrowed a woman's pickup to go collect it, and with the help of a few people, Sam took down the old, decaying fence around the property, and installed a proper one.

After the fence went up, the rest of the yard shaped up pretty well. They cleared away the prickly weeds and planted a proper lawn. While the grass grew, Sam sectioned off part of the yard for the dog to run around in.

And then Sam found himself facing the first quiet day he'd had in a long time.

He didn't really know what to do with himself, honestly. He sat beneath a tree with Cas and the dog and just stared out at the house and waited for it to feel real.

"I guess we should probably give the dog a name, huh?" Sam said. "Since it looks like he'll be staying with us."

"His name is Riot," Cas said simply.

"Riot," Sam repeated, staring at the dog. "How did you come up with that, Cas?" he asked.

Cas didn't answer. He looked good, lying in the dappled shadows underneath the canopy of leaves. The relative peace and quiet of the town suited him, Sam thought. This Cas wasn't a warrior. Sam supposed that maybe this _Sam_ wasn't, either. And he didn't know how to feel about that.

 

* * *

 

The night after he got his name, Riot slept at the foot of Sam's bed for the first time.

It was nice to have someone else in the room with him again, since Cas now had his own room—though he never used it—and the whole house was much quieter than the motels that Sam was used to. Sometimes, Sam had trouble sleeping. He'd get out of bed and go for a run, and he'd often find Cas outside, staring up at the sky with a vacant, faraway look in his eyes.

But a dog was something warm and dependable. And that did a lot to keep the nightmares at bay, though maybe it wasn't as good as having another person there.

Sam had always had a soft spot for dogs. He didn't know why, exactly, since the rest of his family weren't really animal fans. Something about the loyalty and the companionship, maybe.

And so when Sam went to pick up his first dog at animal control, he felt excited. This was a pure kind of doing good that he hadn't felt in a long time.

All of the dogs scratched at the doors to their cages when Sam entered, and his heart hurt for them. The pound is always a sad place. No one wants it to be, but when you're standing in a room full of unwanted animals in cages, it's kind of hard to feel happy, even if you know that you're going to bring one of them home with you.

Sam didn't know which dog to pick. He wanted to take all of them. But he'd already had to tell Cas that they couldn't do that, since they wanted to give the dogs some time to adjust, first.

Then he noticed the name on one of the cages.

It was a small dog, a chihuahua and dachshund mix according to the description. Black, with large brown eyes. And his name was "Baby."

Sam hooked his fingers in the cage and stared down at the dog and fought back some unexpected tears.

Baby wriggled and barked excitedly the entire trip back. Cas held him in his lap, completely still-faced.

Riot was excited to meet the newcomer, and they appeared to get along well enough, though Baby seemed a little timid and uncertain, so Sam separated them until they both had time to get better adjusted. He'd acquired a few (donated) dog kennels, and Baby spent the night in one of them, curled up in a blanket.

Sam anticipated that paying for dog food was going to be a problem later down the road, when the novelty of a brand new animal rescue had worn off, and the donations slowed down. Sam would probably have to get a job. At least people would probably be willing to hire him despite his less than stellar history of employment. Everett and Margaret would give him good references, at least.

It felt strange, worrying about mundane things for once in his life. Sam fell asleep sometime after he started contemplating what his taxes were going to look like, and he slept fitfully.

He startled awake a couple hours from dawn, his mind full of images of Hell and Lucifer. He could hear Baby making distressed noises in the other room.

"Sam," Cas said. "Sam!"

Cas stood over Sam, his figure outlined in stars. His hand was on Sam's shoulder, shaking him awake.

"Cas?" Sam mumbled, disoriented. He sat up and tried to blink away the remnants of the nightmare.

"You were screaming," Cas said. "The animals are distressed."

"Oh shit, sorry," Sam said. He got to his feet and ignored the tremble in his legs. _It wasn't real_ , he reminded himself. _Dean's in Purgatory, not Hell. Lucifer doesn't have him_.

Riot was whining. He'd heard Sam's nightmares before, so he'd learned to expect them, but they made him anxious. "It's okay, Riot," Sam said, petting him. As Riot started to calm down, Sam felt his own heart rate go down a little.

But he didn't know how to comfort Baby. The dog had retreated to the far back corner of the kennel, and he didn't seem interested in getting pet right now. "Hey, Baby, it's okay," Sam tried. "I'm okay. I just... I have some bad memories."

Sam sat down, leaning up against the wall beside the kennel. He kept talking, hoping that if he spoke calmly enough, the feeling would get through to the dog. "I've had some bad stuff happen to me, but it's all over now, except I still can't stop thinking about it. It... it messed me up. And whatever I try to do in my life, it still follows me somehow."

He closed his eyes. Took a couple slow breaths, reaching for a sense of calm.

"And I'm sorry that it scared you. I don't want what hurt me to hurt anyone else, too," he said. Riot wriggled under his hand, and Sam absently pet him. Except for the sound of Riot's tail gently sliding over the floor, the room was silent.

Sam looked into the kennel. Baby had stopped making noises.

Sam unlatched the door to the kennel, and held out his hand. Slowly, the dog approached him. Baby stopped just short of Sam's easy reach, so he had to strain a bit in order to touch him, but as soon as Sam started to pet him, Baby warmed up to him again, and suddenly Sam had an armful of _two_ dogs.

Riot and Baby tried to lick Sam's face at the same time, and he laughed. He looked up, and then his eyes met Cas's, and Sam remembered that he wasn't alone in the room.

Cas wore an unreadable expression. It seemed like he was going to say something, but Sam waited for it, and Cas was silent. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak, but he only got as far as a couple words: "Bees are—" before he cut off abruptly. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

A few seconds later, Cas walked back in. He was holding laundry detergent. He sat down in front of Sam and held up the laundry detergent so that Sam could clearly see the brand _Gain_ printed on the label. Then Cas set it down beside them.

Sam restrained Baby to prevent him from trying to sniff the lid of the container. "Um, Cas? What are you doing?" Sam asked.

Cas seemed frustrated, like Sam wasn't getting something really important.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand," Sam said. But then, _he'd_ done this to Cas. This was _Sam's_ crazy; Cas just bore the burden of it so that Sam wouldn't have to. "Though I guess that's my fault, too," Sam said.

Cas shoved the laundry detergent over. Then he leaned forward, and before Sam could react, Cas's hand settled onto Sam's head.

Cas stroked Sam gently, his fingers carding through Sam's hair. The last person that had really touched Sam's hair like this was Jess, and for a moment, Sam got lost in a memory of her.

But Cas wasn't Jess. And he didn't touch Sam the same way that Jess had touched Sam. This was more like—

_Oh._ That's _what he was trying to say_ , Sam thought.

Cas was trying to comfort Sam the same way that Sam had comforted the dogs. He was trying to say _I'm here_ , and _it's okay_ , and _don't worry_.

Sam leaned into the touch before he realized he was doing it. It had been so long since someone had showed him any sort of physical affection. The last time had been before, well, before _Lucifer_. Before Ruby, even, since she and Sam hadn't been very good at non-sexual touches.

He just closed his eyes, and breathed, and let himself feel loved.

Eventually, Sam moved to get up. Cas's hand fell away, and he looked at it like he didn't know what to do with it.

"Thanks, Cas," Sam whispered. Cas blinked. Nodded, once.

Sam put Baby back inside of the kennel, then went into his bedroom. He lay flat on the bed, Riot a warm weight at his feet. It took him a while to fall back asleep, but when he did, the rest of his dreams were nightmare-free.

 

* * *

 

The next two dogs that Sam and Cas brought home were named Dolly and Kelly. Dolly had curly grey fur and some sort of health problem. After Cas healed her, she seemed to immediately perk up, and Sam had to take her for a walk in order to tire her out a little so that she wasn't so hyperactive. She adjusted quicker than Baby had, though.

Kelly was brown and white, sturdily built, with some pit bull in her. Sam worried about her bossing the smaller dogs around, but Kelly was less interested in terrorizing the other dogs, and more into terrorizing Sam's socks. She shredded two pairs the first day she had access to the full run of the house.

When Cas heard about the socks, he assured Sam that he'd talk to Kelly about it. Sam was a bit skeptical, but there wasn't another sock incident after that. Though Sam was pretty sure that was because Kelly had acquired dog toys to shred instead.

It became apparent that Sam really needed to do two things: 1) start advertising the dog rescue now that it actually contained some dogs, and 2) get a job.

At least Cas was good with the animals, so Sam didn't have to worry about leaving them alone. Cas was _really_ good with them, actually. He always seemed to know exactly what they wanted or needed. Cas might have some trouble communicating with people, but he didn't seem to have any problems communicating with animals. _Good thing Lucifer left_ that _part of his brain alone_ , Sam thought bitterly.

But Sam was at a compete loss regarding what to do about getting a job. He didn't know what kinds of marketable skills he had. Somehow, he didn't think that "skilled at killing monsters" would look good on his resume. The only "real" jobs he'd worked anywhere in the realm of recently had been bartending, and fixing things around Everett's motel.

So he ended up just calling Everett and asking if he still needed any work done. He could work on finding a better, more permanent gig somewhere down the road. After he stopped avoiding the thought of staying here permanently.

It turned out that Everett had him covered regarding the advertising, too.

"Hey, that's a nice flyer," Sam commented.

"Yeah, I had a buddy who'd majored in graphic design whip it up as a favor. Figured it was the least I could do to help," Everett said. "Because you've helped me out a lot, and you've helped my aunt, and now you're helping a bunch of dogs."

"Could I print some more?" Sam asked. It was a much better flyer than anything he could make. Sam had been good at research and good at general book-smarts, but art had never been a subject he'd excelled at.

"Sure. If you give me your email, I'll send you a copy of the file," Everett said.

Sam still couldn't believe how eager people were to help out a mostly complete stranger. Though, then again, he'd been here for... shit, it had already been a couple months. And all that these people knew about Sam was that he lived with a close friend who was a little weird, and that he really liked dogs enough to devote most of his time to helping make their lives better.

While Sam was switching out the old flyers featuring Riot with the flyers advertising the animal rescue, some people even stopped to ask if he'd had any luck finding the dog's home. "Yeah," Sam said. "He lives with me, now."

People liked to hear that. They liked to hear animal stories that had happy endings.

 

* * *

 

Another couple months passed. They got occasional visitors, but none that wanted to adopt any of the dogs.

Margaret suggested that Sam try taking one of the dogs to the local farmer's market. There'd be a lot of people there, and they could see and pet the dog, and it'd be a good way to advertise. So Sam painted a colorful bandana for Dolly to wear that said: _Please adopt me! I live at the Animal Rescue!_ He tied the bandana around Dolly's neck and attached a leash to her collar, then grabbed Cas and set off in search of the farmer's market.

As it turns out, the farmer's market wasn't that hard to find. It was centrally located, and the crop of white tents were hard to miss.

Sam felt a little wary at first. He'd grown up doing most of his grocery shopping in gas stations and vending machines, and this was about the furthest possible thing removed from that. Here, he'd actually be expected to _talk_ to people.

Naturally, Cas loved it. He wandered over to each table, and he stared at all of the fresh fruit and vegetables with an intensity that probably alarmed the merchants and other customers. Sam ended up buying a bunch of things just so that they looked less suspicious.

Cas's favorite vendor at the farmer's market, though, was a little table at the end of the row. It sold exclusively honey and beeswax. And Cas was utterly entranced.

Sam bought some flavored honey for Cas, but that wasn't enough to satisfy his interest. Cas ended up deep in conversation with the beekeeper, talking about everything from bee biology to bee society to God's plan.

"Hey, y'know, we could probably get some bees of our own," Sam said. "From what that guy said, it doesn't sound too hard."

Cas lit up with excitement. "Bees?" he said. He repeated it a little later, like he was reminding himself. "Bees."

Sam made Cas carry all of the groceries, since Cas's arms didn't get tired. And besides, it was kind of Cas's fault that Sam bought so much, anyway. Served the bastard right.

But Dolly was a hit. Especially with the children. They all wanted to hang around Sam and pet Dolly rather than accompany their parents to buy fruit and vegetables. A couple girls begged their mom to let them adopt Dolly, but they just received an _I'll think about it_ , and Sam interpreted that as a clear _no_.

All in all, the venture was a mixed success. But Sam was smiling as he unloaded the grocery bags on the counter while Cas supervised the dogs out in the yard. He didn't know what half of these vegetables even were, but hey, that's what the internet was for.

They went back next week.

And the week after that.

Each time, they brought a different dog, and each time, the dog received a lot of attention, but no offer of adoption. Sam didn't end up minding that much, because it turned out that farmer's markets weren't so bad. Especially since he had an actual working kitchen now, and even though he wasn't a great cook, he could certainly follow a recipe.

Acquiring bees, though, was somewhat of a process. Sam tried to research how to do it, then gave up and just let Cas handle it.

One day, Sam came home after work, and he found Cas just lying under a cloud of bees in the far corner of the yard, naked.

"Um," Sam said.

"Sam," Cas said. He stood up. Sam struggled to keep his eyes above Cas's waist.

"So I guess we have bees now?" Sam said."That's, uh, really cool, Cas," He tripped over his words.

Cas just looked at him and held out his hand. Sam glanced at it, unsure if Cas wanted him to take it or something. Then a bee landed on Cas's palm, and then another, and another, until his skin was covered in them.

"Yeah, you should probably put some clothes on before the neighbors complain," Sam said.

Cas looked at him blankly for a bit. "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked," he said, but the words didn't seem to come easy for him, like he was reciting something he'd memorized long ago, but had since forgotten.

It was a Bible verse, Sam realized. From Genesis.

Cas slowly glanced down himself, then back up at Sam.

"I mean, it doesn't bother me, but if we want people to come to our animal rescue, then we can't have a reputation of public indecency," Sam said.

Cas disappeared. Moments later, he reappeared, this time with clothing.

It felt weird, seeing Cas naked. After Lucifer, naked people kind of lost a lot of the appeal for Sam. His sex drive, which had never been all that high in the first place, had gone away completely. When he'd looked it up one day, he discovered the label _demisexual_. He supposed that pre-Lucifer, that had been a good label for his sexuality. But now? Now he hadn't felt anything in a long time. Years, even.

Trauma sometimes did that to a person.

Sam wondered if Cas had experienced anything similar. But then, Cas had all but told him that he was asexual, and it was hard to lose a sex drive that hadn't been there in the first place.

So Sam just watched the bees and didn't say anything else.

 

* * *

 

Six months  after the animal rescue had officially opened, they found a home for their first dog. Dolly was the lucky winner. It turned out that the girls at the farmer's market had steadily worked on convincing their mom to let them have a dog, and she'd finally caved and agreed to it.

At this point, Sam and Cas had brought home practically every dog that had once lived at Animal Control. All of the permanent residents, at least, since Animal Control still took in lost dogs.

A couple of the rescue dogs hadn't gotten along with each other very well at first, but Cas communicated with them, and somehow, he'd gotten them to work it out so that they could coexist. Sam didn't know how Cas had done it, but he was glad. He also appreciated the thousands of dollars that Cas had saved them on veterinary bills.

All in all, the work of an angel and the kindness of strangers saved Sam quite a lot of money. Just thinking about it made his throat feel kind of tight, because that was the sort of thing he'd never really been able to believe in until now. He'd had hope, yeah, but that's because he needed to believe in _something_ to get him through the day, something to balance out all of the demons and monsters.

But here he was, handing off a leash to a little girl who beamed up at him and danced excitedly on her feet.

It felt... good.

The girls and their mom left with Dolly in tow, and Sam turned towards Cas, feeling energized and happy, and Cas just said: "Now what about the cats?"

"The cats?" Sam asked blankly.

Cas nodded. "They have been very patient," he said.

The logistics of keeping a bunch of cats and a bunch of dogs in the same house overwhelmed Sam a little. It would be possible, but it would take planning, and a lot of supervision, and the animals' freedom would have to be restricted.

But Cas was right. The cats needed a home, too. Sam had just forgotten about them because he'd been focusing on the dogs.

"Yeah, okay, Cas," Sam said. "We can figure something out for the cats." He took a deep breath. Ran his hands through his hair. Then sat down to start planning.

 

* * *

 

A couple months later, Sam and Cas stood in the now-familiar animal control hallway, and for the first time since they'd been there, the place was completely quiet. No dogs barked, or scratched at the door to their cage. No cats mewing pitifully in the other room. Nothing.

"Never thought I'd see the day," Doug, the guy who ran animal control, said. "The place is empty," he marveled.

"We'll see how long that lasts," Sam said.

"I almost feel guilty getting a paycheck for this job," Doug said. "Especially since you boys are doing it for free."

Doing good never paid well. It had crappy hours, zero benefits, and it wasn't a way to make a living. But what Sam said was: "You'll still have work. And you'll get dogs and cats, too, just no more permanent residents." No more animals to euthanize when animal control inevitably ran out of space.

Doug gave them a gigantic bag of dog food, and a smaller gigantic bag of cat food. He said he wouldn't use it up fast enough anyway. He offered to help load the bags into the car, but Sam told him that wouldn't be necessary. Cas was a great pack mule, and since he could teleport, Sam didn't have to worry about spilling pet food all over the far-from-pristine interior of the beloved Impala.

When Sam arrived home, he found the bags of pet food sitting in the kitchen, but there was no Cas in sight. "Cas?" Sam called out.

"Sam," Cas's voice came from one of the rooms. Sam opened the door, and he found Cas lying on the floor. With at least half a dozen cats sitting or lying on him. "You were not very prompt," Cas said. The cats were purring loudly. "I will not be able to assist you with the bags," Cas added.

Sam smiled. The cats all liked Cas a lot better than they liked Sam, and Sam wasn't sure why, but he didn't really mind.

He decided to leave the bags of pet food to take care of later. He had a project to work on, and it was the kind of thing that was easiest to do while the sun was still out.

So he walked out of the house, weaving through all of various dogs that came up to greet him, and entered the fenced off part of the yard that contained Cas's bees. This was easily the ugliest part of the yard. It consisted of dirt and some scattered weeds and not much else besides various tools and some old wood boards that hadn't made it into the fence.

Sam picked up a hammer and a couple nails, then lined up the boards, and started to nail them together. When he was done, the boards formed a large rectangle. Tomorrow, Sam would get some dirt to fill it, and then he and Cas would plant some seeds.

He couldn't remember if the garden had been his idea or Cas's. Sam just thought it would combine well with the bees, and he knew that Margaret would approve of him cleaning up this section of the yard. She'd liked everything else he'd done with the house, even if she had disagreed with the decision to paint it periwinkle.

 

* * *

 

When the day came to plant, it was a fairly nice one. The sun didn't beat down too hard, and the skies shone clear. Sam and Cas stood in the shade of a tree, surveying the garden plot, and Sam read the sowing instructions on the back of the seed packages. Riot, the only dog who was allowed to enter the garden area, panted at their feet.

Neither Sam nor Cas were squeamish about handling dirt. Sam had dug up too many graves to mind getting his hands dirty. And Cas, well, Cas seemed to like being covered in dirt more than he liked being not covered in dirt. He immediately stuck his hand in the garden bed and pulled out a soft fistful of soil that contained a wriggling earthworm.

Sam declined when Cas offered the worm to him. He appreciated the thought, though, whatever it meant to Cas. Sam liked to mean something to Cas. He liked it a lot, actually.

"Hey, you know that you don't have to stick around with me if you don't want to," Sam said.

Cas looked at him with a confused, lost expression.

"I mean, I'm really glad that you're here, but I don't want you to feel like you can't leave." Sam pulled a weed that had already started to worm its way into the garden bed. "It's been... God, it's been almost a year already, hasn't it?"

It hadn't really hit Sam until now, but Dean had spent almost a full year in Purgatory. God knows how much longer that year had been for him.

"And I've just been sitting on my ass here, playing house," Sam said. He tossed the weed into the corner of the yard that they'd designated as the spot for a future compost pile.

Something wet touched his hand — Riot's tongue — and it startled him a little. But the dog was just trying to help, and Sam appreciated that, so he just pet Riot for a little bit and stared at the garden bed.

Then he remembered the last time he got upset and Cas tried to comfort him, so he said: "Cas... Before Riot puts any ideas into your head, you don't need to lick me to help me feel better." He turned around, looking away from the dog and back at Cas, and Cas just stepped towards him and wrapped his arms around Sam.

It was... a hug.

Sam hadn't been hugged in months. Years, maybe. He honestly couldn't remember. All of the sudden, he realized he was starved for it, and he clutched at Cas with dirty hands and just closed his eyes and let it happen.

He didn't want to let go. Not of Cas, or of Dean. But he had to tend to the animals, and he couldn't hold Cas forever, so eventually, he pulled away. At least, he tried to. "Um, Cas?" Sam said, his voice muffled a little.

"Sam," Cas said, like it was the only word he needed to say. He slowly released Sam and stepped away.

"Thanks for that," Sam said. "I needed it." He sighed.

Cas reached up and brushed Sam's hair out of his face with a gentle touch. There didn't seem to be much of a reason for the gesture, but maybe he understood that Sam appreciated and needed the physical contact.

"We should go. Um, take care of the animals and all of that," Sam said, blushing. He was glad that Cas didn't notice or understand what blushing meant. Sam wasn't even really the blushing type.

Cas turned, then disappeared. Sam could almost feel the flutter of his wings. Almost, but not quite. He never could feel them.

A droplet landed on Sam's arm. Then another. He looked up and discovered that rainclouds had moved in after all, just in time. Sam raced Riot all the way back to the house, his mind wonderfully blank. He hoped it'd stay that way for a little longer; give him some peace.

 

* * *

 

That night, Sam woke abruptly, breathing hard, covers twisted around his legs, shadows of tree branches playing across his bed in the moonlight. It hadn't been a nightmare, this time. Something else had woken him.

He lay still, listening to the quiet of the house, trying to sort through his thoughts.

He thought about Cas, who was probably standing outside in the yard right now. Looking at the stars, maybe. He liked to do that. Sam wondered if it was because Cas missed Heaven, or if it was something else entirely that fascinated Cas so much about them.

If Sam had woken from a nightmare, Cas would've been here. He was always here when Sam had nightmares. Even after everything they'd been through together, Cas's presence helped center Sam. Helped stabilize him. Cas was a friend, he was a brother, he was both of those things and more.

And Sam was in love with him. That was it, the thought he'd been chasing. It was so simple, Sam couldn't believe it had taken him this long to figure out.

He liked spending time with Cas, sharing a house with him, struggling their way towards some sort of future together. It was a coping method, a way of dealing with a life that didn't contain Dean, but it gave Sam a reason to get up in the morning.

And it made him happy.

But Sam didn't really know what to do with the realization. He didn't want to have sex with Cas, even if Cas would be interested in that. He mostly just... wanted them to keep doing what they'd been doing. He wanted to fall asleep knowing that they were all okay, and that the animals were okay, too. He wanted to wake up every morning and see Cas standing outside with a halo of bees, yellow-gold in the dawn light.

Eventually, Sam fell back asleep. He yearned for something, but didn't know what.

 

* * *

 

On the day of the anniversary of Dean's disappearance, it rained. Sam didn't mind the rain too much. It helped the garden, and it felt kind of refreshing. However, it discouraged Sam from going out jogging, and it tended to keep him in the house. Everett had given him the day off, so he didn't even have work to look forward to.

Cas made a pot of coffee and offered some to Sam, but he pushed it aside. Ten minutes later, Cas offered him a mug of hot tea instead. Sam accepted begrudgingly, knowing that if he didn't, Cas would subsequently try to offer him every other beverage in the house.

"Do you miss him?" Sam asked. They sat at the little kitchen table, its former rickety leg recently replaced, its wooden surface pockmarked and water-stained.

Cas regarded him for a bit. "Riot whines sometimes if you've been gone for too long," Cas said.

"Yeah, but I come back," Sam said.

"But he doesn't know that," Cas said.

Sam stared into the steam coiling up from the mug. "Are you trying to say that Dean's going to come back, too?" Sam said. "How? If not us, then who's going to get him back?"

Cas reached out towards Sam, his fingers settling in Sam's hair, but Sam jerked back. He pushed the mug of tea away and stood up. Sam felt a sudden anger coursing through him, but he didn't know what it was aimed at. He tried to speak, but found no words. It's not like he could really have a conversation with Cas about it, anyways.

Sam opened his mouth. "Cas—" His voice broke on that single syllable.

After all this time, Sam hadn't cried. He'd wanted to a couple times. Had almost started to. But letting himself grieve meant giving up, and Sam wasn't ready to give up.

"Sam," Cas said. He stood up and took a step towards Sam.

" I— I miss him, Cas," Sam said simply. A tear blurred his vision in one eye, then it streaked down his cheek, warm and then cold. Then another tear fell. And another, until there was nothing Sam could do except stand there and let it run its course.

An arm wrapped around him. Pulled him gently in. And Cas just hugged him as he cried, fingers curling into Sam's hair, steady and sure.

Afterwards, Sam looked at Cas's face, at his expression that always seemed to be something between sadness and wonder, and in that moment, he really wanted to kiss him. So he did. Just leaned down and pressed his lips to Cas's mouth.

Cas didn't respond. Didn't kiss back, didn't try to push Sam away, nothing.

After a couple seconds, Sam pulled away. "Sorry," he said. "Just wanted to try it out."

Cas watched him, but didn't seem alarmed. His eyes seemed almost soft, actually. He opened his mouth, but it took him a lot of effort to form the words. "I love you," he said. It sounded like he'd rehearsed it, like he'd carefully pieced together the sentence after hours of thought.

When the words were met with Sam's stunned silence, Cas tipped his head. The gesture asked: _"was that right?"_

And despite everything, despite the rain, and the tears, and the fact that Dean was gone and might not be coming back, Sam smiled. He started to laugh, actually. "I know," he said. He quickly added: "That, uh, also means I love you. Well, sometimes it does. Like right now."

And maybe Sam did know how to go on without Dean. Or at least, he could figure it out. He and Cas could figure it out, together.

 

* * *

 

They went on without Dean for five years.

Five years of not looking, of fostering rescue animals, of maintaining a house, of growing a garden.

The grief was still there, but Sam didn't try and bury it, this time. Instead, he lived with it. He and Cas both did, just as they lived with all of the other pain and trauma from everything else that had happened to them.

Then Dean shows up and pushes Sam to the ground and douses him with holy water, and suddenly nothing is simple, and that's another wound ripped right back open, raw and bleeding like the dog on the asphalt.


End file.
